Israeli Soldier Shot To Death On West Bank

March 21, 1988|By Uli Schmetzer, Chicago Tribune.

BETHLEHEM, ISRAELI-OCCUPIED WEST BANK — A 28-year-old Israeli soldier was shot to death at close range Sunday, the first time an Israeli soldier in the occupied territories was killed since violent Arab demonstrations against Israel began in December.

Sgt. Moshe Katz, a bachelor from Haifa, was shot to death while on guard duty during his 55-day annual reservist service.

Standing next to the bloodstained alley where the soldier was shot, Gen. Dan Shomron, the army chief of staff, said he did not believe the shooting marked an escalation in Palestinian violence with the use of firearms.

``I do not conceive this murder as a shift to armed struggle. They do have firearms but they use them rarely. There have been similar attempts in recent days and weeks,`` Shomron said.

But the general also stressed that soldiers can use their weapons at their own discretion if they believe their life is in danger.

Military sources said Shomron`s remarks and the shooting death are certain to prompt soldiers in the occupied areas to make more frequent use of their weapons when confronted with rioters.

Nearly 100 Palestinians have been killed in the uprising. The Arabs want Israel to give up the territories it took in the 1967 Mideast war.

Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin told a gathering of foreign volunteers Sunday night in Jerusalem that the soldier`s killing marked a ``painful day for Israel.``

``Let`s hope it was an exception that won`t be repeated,`` he said, adding a warning that ``otherwise tougher measures (may) be used with both the civil disturbances and the terrorism.``

The slaying of Katz on Sunday morning in the town of Christ`s birth stunned Israelis. It also shattered the enforced calm over a community that throughout the uprising has continued to be a major tourist attraction.

Bethlehem Mayor Elias Freij told the Associated Press that the situation in the territories ``will be aggravated`` by the shooting. But he blamed the frustration of Arab protesters on Israel`s continuing occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Katz was on sentry duty outside the Interior Ministry complex on the main street leading into Bethlehem.

An army officer told The Tribune the soldier was leaning against a wall in the alley leading to the fenced-off complex. Opposite is an appliance store called ``Happy Home.``

``The attacker must have walked toward him under the colonnade of stores. He shot him at close range in the head and neck, probably with a revolver,`` the officer said.

Police later recovered two 9 mm. bullets at the shooting scene.

In the pandemonium afterward, three news photographers on the scene who had covered a riot in the nearby village of Umm Tuba were manhandled and had their films confiscated by soldiers firing indiscriminately into the air after they found their dying companion.

Spanish free-lance photographer Javier Bauluz told The Tribune: ``There were two soldiers with the dying man. He lay on his side in a pool of blood. One soldier was bent over him and crying. The other was firing wildly into the air and screaming in Hebrew.

``It took 10 minutes before a doctor arrived on the scene,`` Bauluz said. Katz was taken to Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem, where he died.

The sentry was found by two companions on duty inside the complex. According to an army officer, they saw no trace of his attacker in the crowd of shoppers, mainly from the nearby refugee camp of Beit Jibrin where 1,000 people live.

Firing into the air, soldiers cordoned off the area around the ministry. More than 200 Palestinians were detained.

Soldiers ordered workers down from building sites, arrested women shoppers and ran into the refugee camp, re-emerging with more detainees.

The detainees, their identification cards confiscated, were ordered to squat on their haunches in the colonnaded area next to the shooting scene and the pool of blood. In small groups, they were led into the ministry for interrogation.

More than an hour after the shooting, agitated soldiers were still manhandling journalists. Bauluz, taking a photograph of a group of detained Palestinians, said a soldier came up to him and smashed his rifle butt into the camera lens. The lens was broken and Bauluz suffered a swollen eye.

When an army officer was told what had happened and the soldier was pointed out to him, the officer shrugged and said, ``There is nothing I can do.``

Rabin and the army chief of staff visited the scene.

``This is a very serious murder and I must admit there have been similar attempts in recent days and months,`` Shomron said.

He reiterated the army`s standing order that any soldier who thinks his life is threatened can open fire with live bullets at his own discretion.

The first attack on Israeli soldiers during the uprising was in February when a homemade bomb exploded near an army vehicle and its occupants came under rifle fire.

On March 4, four soldiers were injured when a homemade pipe bomb exploded under their vehicle in Gaza. On March 6, a border officer was wounded by a grenade thrown at him during demonstrations in the village of Idna near northern Nablus.

In Gaza City on Sunday, the Associated Press reported that troops closed the main vegetable market for three hours after firing tear gas to disperse Arab youths who blocked a main street and hurled stones at troops.

Israelis have been using economic pressure in addition to military force in trying to quell the unrest. They have cut international telephone lines and blocked fuel shipments.

In other violence, the army said Israeli troops shot and killed a 26-year-old Arab late Saturday when their patrol was attacked with firebombs in the West Bank village of Kfar Dan, about 50 miles north of Jerusalem. The Arab-run Palestine Press Service identified the victim as Nameq Milhem.